'Is that wrong?' Liat asked.
'You're the one who came to Otah-kvo asking that they all be killed.'
'I suppose I did, didn't I? I don't know what's changed. Something to do with having my boy out there, I suppose. Slaughtering a nation isn't so much to think about. It's when I start feeling that it all goes confused. I wonder why we do it. I wonder why they do. Do you think if we gave them our gold and our silver and swore we would never hind a fresh andat… do you think they'd let our children live?'
It took a few breaths to realize that Liat was actually waiting for his answer, and several more before he knew what he believed.
'No,' Maati said. 'I don't think they would.'
'Neither do I. But it would he good, wouldn't it? A world where it wasn't a choice of our children or theirs.'
'It would be better than this one.'
As if by common consent, they changed the subject, talking of food and the change of seasons, Eiah's new half-apprenticeship with the physicians and the small doings of the women of the utkhaiem now that their men had gone. It was only reluctantly that Maati rose. The sun was two and a half hands past where it had been when he woke, the shadows growing oblong. They walked back to the library, hand in hand at first, and then only walking beside each other. Nlaati felt his heart growing heavier as they came down the familiar paths, paving stones turning to sand turning to crushed white gravel bright as snow.
'You could come in,' Nlaati said when they reached the wide front doors.
In answer, she kissed him lightly on the mouth, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and turned away. Maati sighed and turned to lumber up the steps. Inside, Cehmai was sitting on a low couch, three scrolls spread out before him.
'I think I've found something,' Cehmai said. 'There's reference in Nlanat-kvo's notes to a grammatic schema called threefold significance. If we have something that talks about that, perhaps we can find a way to shift the binding from one kind of significance to another.'
'We don't,' Nlaati said. 'And if I recall correctly, the three significators all require unity. 'There's not a way to pick between them.'
'Well. 'Then we're still stuck.'
'Yes.'
Cehmai stood and stretched, the popping of his spine audible from across the wide room.
'We need someone who knows this better than we do,' Maati said as he lowered himself onto a carved wooden chair. 'We need the Daikvo.'
'We don't have him.'
'I know it.'
'So we have to keep trying,' Cehmai said. 'The better prepared we are when the Dai-kvo comes, the better he'll he able to guide us.'
'And if he never comes?'
'He will,' Cehmai said. 'He has to.'
16
'Yes,' Nayiit said. 'That's him.'
Otah's mount whickered beneath him as he looked up at the Dal-kvo's body. It had been tied to a stake at the entrance to his high offices; the man had been dead for days. The brown-robed corpses of the poets lay at his feet, stacked like cordwood.
They had taken it all as granted. The andat, the poets, the continuity of one generation following upon another as they always had. It grew more difficult, yes. An andat would escape and for a time and the city it had left would suffer, yes. They had not conceived that everything might end. Otah looked at the slaughtered poets, and he saw the world he had known.
The morning after the battle had been tense. He had risen before dawn and paced through the camps. Several of the scouts vanished, and at first there was no way to know whether they had been captured by the Galts or killed or if they had simply taken their horses, set their eyes on the horizon, and fled. It was only when the reports began to filter back that the shape of things came clear.
The Galts had fallen hack, their steam wagons and horses making a fast march to the east, toward the village of the Dal-kvo. 'There was no pursuit, no rush to find the survivors of that bloody field and finish the work they'd begun. Otah's army had been broken easily, and the Galts' contempt for them was evident in the decision that they were not worth taking the time to kill.
It was humiliating, and still Otah had found himself relieved. More of his men would die today, but only from wounds they already bore. They had given Otah a moment to rest and consider and see how deep the damage had gone.
Four hundred of his men lay dead in the mud and grass beside perhaps a third as many Galts, perhaps less. Another half thousand were wounded or missing. A few hours had cost him a third of what he had, and more than that. The men who had survived the retreat were different from the ones he had spoken to at their cook fires before the fight. 'T'hese men seemed stunned, lost, and emptied. The makeshift spears and armor that had once seemed to speak of strength and resourcefulness now seemed painfully naive. 'T'hey had come to battle armed like children and they had been killed by men. Otah found himself giving thanks to any gods that would listen for all the ones who had lived.
The scouting party left two days later. It was made of twenty horsemen and as many on foot, Otah himself at the lead. Nayiit asked permission to come, and Otah had granted it. It might not have been keeping the boy safe the way he'd promised Nlaati, but as long as Nayiit blamed himself for the carnage and defeat, it was better that he be away from the wounded and the dying. The rest of the army would stay behind in the camp, tend to the men who could be helped, ease the passing of those past hope, and, Otah guessed, slip away one by one or else in groups. He couldn't think they would follow him into battle again.
The smaller group moved faster, and the path the Galts had left was clear as a new-built road. (, burned grass, broken saplings, the damage done by thousands of disciplined feet. The wounded earth was as wide as ten men across-never more, never less. The precision was eerie. It was two days' travel before Otah saw the smoke.
They reached the village near evening. They found a ruin. Where glittering windows had been, ragged holes remained. The towers and garrets cut from the stone of the mountain were soot-stained and broken. ' 'he air smelled of burned flesh and smoke and the copper scent of spilled blood. Otah rode slowly, the clack of his mount's hooves on pavement giving order to the idiot, tuneless wind chimes. The air felt thick against his face, and the place where his heart had once been seemed to gape empty. His hands didn't tremble, he did not weep. IIis mind simply took in the details-a corpse in the street wearing brown robes made black with blood, a Galtic steam wagon with the wide metalwork on the back twisted open by some terrible force, a firekeeper's kiln overturned and ashen, an arrow splintered against stoneand then forgot them. It was unreal.
Behind him, the others followed in silence. 't'hey made their way to the grand office at the height of the village. The great hall, open to the west, caught the light of the setting sun. The white stone of the walls glowed, light where it had escaped the worst damage and a deeper, darker gold where smoke had marked it.
And in the entrance of the hall, the Dai-kvo was tied to a stake. The hopes of the Khaiem lying dead at his feet.
I could have stopped this, Otah thought. The Galts live because I spared them at Saraykeht. This is my fault.
He turned to Nayiit.
'Have him cut down,' he said. 'We can have them buried or burned. Anything but this.'
Behind the gruesome sight squatted the remains of a great pyre. Logs as tall as a standing man had been hauled here and set to hold the flames, and had burned nearly through. The spines of ancient hooks lay stripped in the ashes of their pages and curled from the heat. Shredded ribbons that had held the codices closed shifted in the
